The origin of the name is uncertain but it is now over 100 years since Frank Hornby first used the word Meccano for the toy he invented to amuse his sons. Like the product it described, it is now known all over the world and has entered the dictionary as a term in common usage. Frank Hornby's vision of an educational toy became the basis of perhaps the most successful British Toy manufacturer of the 20th century.

Meccano's success, which even surprised its inventor, supported the development of many other high quality products. As well as the famous Hornby trains and Dinky Toys,...

Central to the prompt delivery of the nation's mail is its efficient transit throughout the country. From 1830, the Post Office relied increasingly on the overland rail network to achieve this. Railway Post Offices, Sunday Sorting Tenders and District Sorting Carriages were amongst the services introduced.

More important lines carried the famous 'Night Mails'; rarely seen by the public, unless seeking out the late night facility of posting directly into the side of a mail train. These were supplemented by additional services enabling even rural locations to enjoy a 'next day' service...

The Women's Suffrage Movement is an overview of the struggle for women to gain the vote in Great Britain and explores who the women were that formed and led or became members of the women's suffrage movement; explains their motives and what the press and other women thought of them. Early campaigners and pressure groups in the nineteenth century led to the formation of National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in 1897; many women within this group became increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress in their campaign to win the vote and, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, they broke away...

Overshadowed in the public eye by the events of the Second World War - and of the impacts of recent wars at the transition of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries - the period of National Service is sometimes portrayed as a long-running and monumental waste of time, a period of 'bull' and 'blanco' of 'jankers' and 'whitewashing'. Yet, emerging from the harsh reality of a truly world war and into the new dawn of the Cold War, it was clear that Britain would have to face new threats from old allies, and to meet considerable overseas obligations from its vestiges of Empire. The...

Beswick is typical of the numerous small scale ceramic factories founded towards the end of the Victorian era and manufacturing through the first two thirds of the 20th century. Like many of these companies Beswick produced a mix of tableware and sculptural ceramics adjusting its designs to take account of the trends of each decade. However the company is atypical by the very fact of its survival - in spite of the many upheavals which have transformed the ceramic industry during the latter part of the 20th century. Its story is one of evolution from a traditional Victorian Pottery to a...

Georgian garden buildings often seem monuments to rich mens' folly and whimsy, but they always had a purpose, whether functional or ornamental. Today they are valued for their social history and their key place in the history of architecture and landscape design, as well as often for their sheer beauty or quirkiness.

This glossary of Georgian garden buildings introduces their place in architectural and landscape history. It then explains the purpose and form of individual types in the context of the English landscape garden, perhaps the greatest contribution that these islands have...

By the time the first photographs were taken at war in the 1850s, the idea that 'the camera cannot lie' was already firmly embedded in the Victorian psyche. Photographs were truth, in a way the work of the war artist could never be. Long exposures and cumbersome equipment, however, meant that for the first few decades the medium could not capture action. Out of that early period came the celebrated - but rather prosaic - photographs of Roger Fenton in the Crimea, and the more realistic images of the American Civil War a decade later. War photography had been a reality for nearly fifty...

Industrialisation changed every aspect of rural life in the reign of Queen Victoria. It caused a greater diversification in industry which resulted in a decline in agriculture, and people moved from the country to the manufacturing towns in droves. In 1851 only half the population lived in towns but by 1901 three-quarters did so.

This book outlines the changes and why they occurred. It paints a picture of country life as it was when Victoria came to the throne and shows how a recognisably modern British way of life had established itself by the end of her reign. During that time...

From Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases to Keep Calm and Carry On, the Home Front posters from the Second World War have become part of British culture. Some were design classics, others more prosaic, but together they give a fascinating insight into the trials and tribulations of living through World War Two.

This was the first total war, with civilians as essential to the war effort as soldiers. So posters instructed people on everything from cooking and salvage to how to speak, and even think, about the war. This book tells the story behind these posters: how they were designed...